A Day in the Life continued
by xxd
Summary: The Cylon fleet is poised to destroy the colonies. The Culture have a Special Circumstances agent on the ground attempting to foil their attacks and there are some Culture ships in the neighborhood to sort things out if the Cylons decide to go hegemonic.
1. Chapters 812

A Day In The Life Continued - This is my version of how "A Day in The Life" by imjustaguy should have ended

CHAPTER EIGHT

Present Day - Cyrannus System - Spattered Raindrop Nebula: 18,000 light years from milky way galaxy.

ROU Kicking Down the Door continued talking to the cylon command aboard the compromised basestar.  
"I am the Rapid Offensive Unit Kicking Down The Door and I represent the Interstellar civilization "The Culture". Our Civilization is composed of trillions of sentient minds from human standard intelligence to Minds many orders of magnitude more intelligent. We wish you no harm, but the time for games of death is over. We demand you cease and desist your war of genocide against the colonials or face the consequences. In return, we offer eventual membership to The Culture."

The Cylons aboard, however, heard only silence.  
The three asked intently, "Is it gone? Maybe our missiles destroyed it."  
An eight said, pursing her lips with a serious expression, "We still don't have control of our systems. They must be infected with some kind of virus."

"The Gods quarrel. Hydrazyne composition of engines adjusted. Failsafe memory core rebooting."

"What the frak are the hybrids talking about?" said a three, shaking her head

"Don't listen to them, it's gibberish."

Slowly, the various tactical, sensor, life support, information systems and associated hardware began to reboot and the red emergency lights flickered off and were replaced with eerily bright white fully operational systems lighting.

"We have systems back online" said an eight, looking up from the green glowing terminal.

"Lock on target and take out the enemy vessel." demanded the three.

Nuclear tipped missiles sped towards the target and passed through empty space.

The eight responded, "There's nothing there."

The Cylons looked at each other incredulously.

Present Day

Brian looked intently at all of them and gritted his teeth while clenching his stomach tightly and closing his eyes. He pressed the button to detonate the micro warhead buried in his chest cavity.

He said his prayers to God as the button fully depressed and contact was made with the bomb.

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes again and looked around.

Everyone was still there.

Except Baltar who had apparently just disappeared.

"What the frak"

-  
Six Months ago (Colonial Reckoning) - Interstellar Space - Spattered Raindrop Nebula - 18,000 light years from Milky Way

Steppe Class MSV "Science Project" dropped out of ultraspace at the outer edge of a G4 planetary system and started scanning with a wide band electromagnetic and optical scan using onboard Effectors. As normal for systems of this type there were a number of gas giants, one huge multi-coloured banded hydrogen-helium giant and another, less brilliant but with a gorgeous rock-dust water-ice ring at an angle to its ecliptic. There were two additional featureless and cold smaller gas balls The fourth planet was just on the edge of the habitable zone but was so small it's atmosphere and all traces of water vapor it had once had had leaked away millions of years ago leaving it barren, bone dry and completely lifeless. The second planet was a super greenhouse death ball where the metal lead existed in a molten state with clouds of sulphuric acid in an atmosphere heated to over five hundred degrees centigrade. The first planet was barely a moon but orbiting so close to the star that it had ceased to rotate and was gravity locked to the star. It was a one-face world.

The third planet out, however was a typical oxygen-water world with optically obvious signs of late stage 3 early stage 4 civilization.

_-To-Incident Group_

_-From - MSV - Science Project_

**I'm here. I think I've found the originator planet where the signals in the 2,000 year old electromagnetic envelope we intercepted were coming from. The planet which according to the signals best as we can make out translates as "Soil" in Marain.**

_-From - GSV - Tripping Through the Stars (Incident Coordinator)_  
_-To-MSV-Science Project_

**Good work. Get a wide range of data and report back. You know the drill.**

_-To-Incident Group_

_-From-MSV - Science Project_

**No problem boss.**

_-From-GSV-Tripping Through the Stars (Incident Coordinator)_  
_-To-MSV-Science Project_

**Don't call me that.**

_-To-Incident Group -From-MSV_

_- Science Project_

**LOL.**

**OK I'll report back when I have more. Science Project out.**

Present Day

Rapid Offensive Unit Kicking Down the Door was mystified in as far as a Mind could be.

It ran a complete check of its sensing instruments and then a double check and then a triplicate. Jarringly, it wasn't in fact seeing things in spite of the impossible evidence. According to the readings whereas it had been deep inside the nebula containing both the colonies and the Cylon territories, incredibly it was no longer where it expected to be.

Now, according to best evidence calibrations with the stars around it from verifiable records it was floating at least two hundred light years outside the nebula back in the direction of the milky way.

The optical sensors reported a vibrantly beautiful view of the sworling aquamarine galactic cloud which was known to The Culture as the Spattered Raindrop Nebula or NGC 3603 to Earth astronomers.

With some confusion the Mind deliberated. For all of four hundred microseconds it ran back through its sensor records and there was no discernible time lapse between when it had been there and arriving here.

"Very interesting" it thought.

If it had been a human it might have shuddered a little.

_-To-Incident Group_

_-From - Rapid Offensive Unit Kicking Down the Door_

**LOL. You're not going to believe this. Well maybe you will on second thoughts given all the goofy shit that has already happened so far. But regardless, I have a little issue.**

-  
Six Months Ago (Colonial Reckoning)

MSV Science Project coasted slowly towards the blue white planet at .05 lights on plasma engines, a gentle whorl of highly charged noble gas ions swirling behind in its wake. As it coasted starwards it collected all the usual reams of data about the planetary system and carefully categorized and logged every data point fastidiously for safekeeping. Although The Culture could sublime at any minute if it chose to, like countless Elder Civilizations that had gone before it, they still had an interest in the mundane, in the real universe.

The Culture was obsessed with real data and always collected as much as it could, regardless of how insignificant or trivial such data might seem at first glance. That said, the bulk of its sensors were directed at the third planet in spite of the reams of data it was accumulating from the rest of the system.  
All normal electromagnetic spectrum effectors showed the expected traces indicating a typical class 3 to early class 4 civilization.

From the indications, the planet would be heavily populated, numbering around five and a half billion human type species estimated. By Culture standards, the planet was bursting at the seams and a more comfortable level of population would have been around a half billion total.

Drilling down to a greater level of detail, the continents showed a high level of urbanization from poles to tropics with several hundred cities of a million or more people and a couple dozen megacities in the range of ten million or more.

The planet itself was unremarkable. It had eight continents, about sixty percent concentrated in the southern region, but also two rocky continents at the poles, glaciated and though not heavily populated, even so had signs of inhabitation. These people whoever they were, were tenacious.

The atmosphere also was typical of such worlds with 19% oxygen, less than one percent Carbon Dioxide, some noble gases, an estimated few hundred years of industrial crap and the rest nitrogen.

Unfortunately the Mind could already see an issue in the electromagnetic spectrum sweep of the planet at high frequencies.

There was radiation everywhere and a scan of the most concentrated radioactive elements and their proportions correlated with the known half lives of these elements lead to the inescapable conclusion that the population had clearly fought a thermonuclear war some two thousand some years ago.

Using yet more sophisticated scans capable of detecting the tell-tale signature of life the disappointing result was the cities were all radioactive ruins and everyone was dead. The Mind sighed mentally and extended the scan to the other planets and moons that could theoretically have been reached by a civilization with this level of technology.

Sadly, it appeared there were absolutely no signs of human life left alive on the planet or anywhere else in the system for that matter.

The Mind consulted with itself for a split second and then made the machine equivalent of a heavy sigh and switched to sensors using more exotic forms of energy including hyperspace sensors and ultraspace sensors and made a broad sweep of the planet looking for any clues as to what had happened to them.

What it saw, it recognized immediately.

"Shit"

CHAPTER NINE - A Day in the Life Continued

Six months earlier - Colonial Reckoning - Spattered Raindrop Nebula

Although the blue-white water planet floating in front right ahead of it was unremarkable when viewed using realspace instruments such as those that measure the electromagnetic spectrum, neutrinos, gravity waves et cetera, it was altogether a different sight when seen using ultrawave instruments.

Surrounding the planet out to about half an astronomical unit was a shimmering white barrier with a particular ultrawave radiation signature that MSV Science Project recognized only too well and had seen once before at Schar's world.

Hastily before attracting any kind of attention, Science Project snapped a high resolution photograph in ultrawave and reversed thrust back out towards the edge of the system as fast as sentiently possible.

At the very edge of the system when it was sure it was out of trouble, it communicated with GSV-Tripping Through the Stars to let it know what it had seen.

_To-GSV-Tripping Through the Stars (Incident Coordinator)_

_From-MSV Science Project_

**-sending urgent data-**

**I thought you might like to see this. You will of course recognize this image as soon as you see it. As a precaution I have aborted the mission to investigate the planet pending further instructions. I will of course, continue to collect data on the outer system but for now, I'm gong nowhere near it. One thing at least, we know one of the players out here. The Dra'Azon…. Science Project out.**

Six Months ago - Colonial Reckoning - Spattered Raindrop Nebula 18,000 light years from Milky Way

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GSV - Tripping Through The Stars (Incident Coordinator)_

**Certainly the conversation Science Project had with the Dra'Azon is very interesting.**

**Good work by the way Science, although I must say, a little unorthodox in how you got the guardian to respond.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-MSV Science Project_

**Thank you. I do what I can.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-How Many Roads can a Mind Walk Down_

**Can we be sure that it's not really the Dra'Azon who are running the whole show in spite of what they say? They certainly have the power to be able to do this given their command of technology in advance of ours. I for one am not convinced they have no hand in this. I don't trust the Dra'Azon further than I can throw them. Which is to say, not at all.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-Dancing on Pinheads_

**Well as far as I can make out, the Dra'Azon don't seem to do much other than act as sort of museum curators. They don't seem to actively interfere like us Involveds do.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-ROU Kicking Down the Door_

**Nice picture Dancing, but I think they're more like bouncers throwing out undesirables trying to get into a fashionable dance club.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-How Many Roads can a Mind Walk Down_

**How droll Kicking. Just like you. I think you spend too much time spying on the humans. You're just like Meatfucker in some ways.**

_Tp-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-Dancing on Pinheads_

**Regardless of what analogy we use here, it seems to me that this is not the style of the Dra'Azon. I really don't think it is them doing it. Shall we take a vote? For it being the Dra'Azon, against it being the Dra'Azon?**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-How Many Roads can a Mind Walk Down_

**For**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-Dancing on Pinheads_

**Against**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-ROU Kicking Down the Door_

**Against**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-MSV Science Project_

**Do I get a vote? Yippee!**

**OK then, seriously?**

**Against**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GSV-Tripping Through the Stars_

**Against**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU Dew of the Morning Flower_

**Against**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GSV-Tripping Through the Stars_

**Well we seem to have reached a consensus and agreed that most of us don't think it's the Dra'Azon based on past evidence of behavior, excepting our good friend Roads. Given that we suspect it's not the Dra'Azon and we know of no other Involveds out here and the Dra'Azon have been known to be somewhat obtuse in the past, I suggest we continue, but maintain a low profile. Science Project, why don't you withdraw to the edge of the system and keep quiet unti something crops up?**

PRESENT DAY - Baltar's quarters - GSV - Tripping Through the Stars - Ten Light Years outside Cyrannus System beyond the range of Cylon or Colonial instruments - Spattered Raindrop Nebula - 18,000 light years from Milky Way

Baltar raised his eyebows and smiled lopsidedly, taking in the view of his spacious cabin. In spite of his instant change of surroundings his face betrayed no sign of surprise, instead he registered just a trace of sardonic humour.

He said out loud to one in particular, "Well isn't this a surprise?"

"Baltar? What are you doing here?" said the ship's Mind.

"I'm not sure, but it _is_ very interesting, isn't it?"

"Like the ancient curse Baltar. By the way, where is your terminal? You don't usually go without it."

"I'm not sure. When I was displaced by Kicking on board ship along with the Cylons, I guess he must have assumed that since I had the drone with me I was in good enough contact."

"Speaking of whom…"

"Hello Baltar, it's a relief to hear you. I was a bit worried you had been displaced along with the missing Cylons... " said the voice of Kicking Down the Doors

"That sounds ominous" said Tripping

Present Day - Interstellar Space, just outside Spattered Raindrop Nebula, 18,000 light years fro m Milky Way

_To-Incident Group_

_From - Rapid Offensive Unit Kicking Down the Door_

**By the way, just for shits and giggles people, can you guess where I am?**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GSV-Tripping Through the Stars (Incident Coordinator)_

**You're not usually this flippant, KD, what's going on?**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-Dancing On Pinheads_

**Do Tell.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-ROU Kicking Down the Door_

**I am now located 200 light years outside the Spattered Raindrop Nebula. I can see a very pretty Herbig Haro object just barely visible that wasn't here the last time. It's quite nice actually**

**-sending image-**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-How Many Roads can a Mind Walk Down_

**How Droll.**

**-receiving image-**

**Yes it's very pretty I'm sure. I always liked baby stars. Nevertheless, let's get back to the topic on hand shall we? We have important things to attend to, but you're traipsing around sightseeing. Could you go back to the Cyrannus system to deal with the Cylons now please?**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-ROU Kicking Down the Door_

**The point is…. people…. I've only been here for about a minute real time.**

_From-GCU-Dancing On Pinheads_

_To-Incident Group_

**Ooops...**

**Just out of interest...**

**Do you happen to have a copy of your mind state or at least the relevant frames from the period where you transferred so we can examine?**

_From-ROU Kicking Down the Door_

_To-Incident Group_

**You know, if I was insane I wouldn't even have mentioned it, but the point is, I got here in a timescale that's impossible. I can of course transmit my mind state to you if absolutely necessary but you have my word that I'm not compromised or making things up. I simply don't know how I got here**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GCU-Dancing On Pinheads_

**woooo-oooooo spooky! Ghosts!**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GSV Tripping Through the Stars (Incident Coordinator)_

**No slight is intended Kicking I'm sure. The others don't have the evidence you and I have. I for example have Baltar aboard as you are aware, so something strange has definitely happened. Do you think the Dra'Azon are taking a hand in this? They seem to be involved somehow. I'm going to add Science Project to the chat.**

**-cc'ing Science Project-**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-MSV Science Project_

**Hello everyone. I'm glad to hear from you. As much fun as I'm having out here on the edge of this dead system, I'm a little bored with nothing to do except collect data. BTW Can you add me to the Incident Group as a full member instead of having to add me in to the cc list all the time?**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-GSV-Tripping Through the Stars (Incident Coordinator)_

**Of course.**

**-adding Science Project to Incident Group-**

**Well I have some news for you sending transcript of previous conversation. I don't think you'll be bored much longer, even though I suspect you've probably spent as much time as you could in Infinite Fun Space to while away the hours.**

**We'd like you to ask the Dra'Azon if it's doing this.**

_To-Incident Group_

_From-MSV Science Project_

**Woo-hoo. Fun and games indeed. Of Course. I'll move in right now.**

PRESENT DAY - Spattered Raindrop Nebula 18,000 light years from Milky Way. Outer edge of previously unknown Dra'Azon Planet of the Dead System.

MSV Science Project fired up it's hyperdrive and in less than a minute was in geostationary equatorial orbit round the third planet.

It noted with interest the shimmering barrier visible only with ultrawave instruments.

Using it's broadband ultrawave transmitter/receiver it beamed directly at the barrier

"I have a question"

No response.

Science Project waited over an hour, an interminably long period of time for a Mind before a response was received.

"YOU MAY NOT PASS THE BARRIER"

"I don't want to pass the barrier. I want to ask you questions."

No reponse. "Dickhead fucking typical Dra'Azon response just exactly like the transcripts read from earlier contacts." thought Science Project, "These elder civilizations, however advanced they may be, have little in the way of wit or social graces."

Science Project transmitted once more, "I'm going to send a Drone in. It is a sentient entity and thus it would be most uncouth to destroy it."

"YOU MAY NOT PASS THE BARRIER"

Drone Eta Gumpferdugoo metaphorically looked up from his hobby of tending to rare fungi.

"Yes MSV-Science Project, what's going on?"

"I want to send you outside to take a look at something."

"You have my interest."

"It could be dangerous."

"Of course it is. But don't worry about that. Danger is the reason I signed up for SC in the first place. So what do you want me to do?"

Less than a minute later the drone was floating right on the edge of the shimmering barrier, hovering just out of physical reach and maintaining distance with attitude jets ready to take it back to the ship at a moment's notice.

"Get as close as you can"

"Will do"

The little drone flew closer to the barrier ever so gently using a bare whisper of attitude jets until it was less than a half-centimeter from the barrier.

"IF YOU ENTER THE BARRIER YOU WILL BE DESTROYED."

MSV Science Project transmitted back at the sphere: "Now we have your attention. Are you responsible for the displacement of Culture Vessel Kicking Down the Door to outside this galactic nebula?"

"WE HAVE NO INTEREST IN THE AFFAIRS OF LOWER CIVILIZATIONS"

"So you didn't do it then? In that case who did it?"

No response. After ten minutes MSV Science Project asked drone Eta to move yet closer.

"YOU ARE VERY CLOSE TO DESTRUCTION"

MSV Science Project transmitted back, "You're not very fucking helpful are you? Just bloody well tell us who did it."

"THERE ARE OTHERS"

"Whooping fucking obvious. Who are they and what are they doing?"

"WE HAVE NO INTEREST IN OBSERVING ANY OTHERS. THE RULES ARE DIFFERENT WHERE THEY ARE."

"How bloody cryptic of you. I'm beginning to wonder if you Dra'Azon guardians are actually sentient or not"

No response. After ten more minutes, MSV Science Project deliberated with itself and concluded there was no further point in risking damage or death to the Drone.

"Drone Eta, you may return to the airlock. I don't think we're going to get much else out of this bucket of bolts."

To-Incident Group

From-MSV Science Project

**-transmitting recording of conversation with Dra'Azon guardian-**

A Day in the Life Continued - Chapter 10 - Aboard Cylon Dradis Vessel - Cyrannus Sytem - Spattered Raindrop Nebula - 18,000 light years from Milky way - Present Day

The model One looked skeptically at the other Cylon humanoid models and without warning burst out laughing. It was a horrible laugh full of an evil cynicism which, had there been any human present, would have given said human shivers. The laugh silenced the others.

He spoke in a condescending supercilious tone, "Do any of you _toaster_s actually, honestly believe in this total frakken **crap** that the human Baltar tried to pull over your eyes?"

The Three was looking at her feet, shoulders slumped with a look of acute embarrassment.

The Three spoke up pointedly, without raising her eyes to look at the One, "Do **you** believe that this could be anything else other than powerful Aliens? Baltar has disappeared for example, and we all remember being aboard the other ship?"

The One laughed cruelly once more, "You are so naive Three. And your suggestions are counter to our teachings received from God. The humans are weak. They are animals and we have been given a holy command from on high that they are an abomination to be destroyed. To say anything else is heresy."

The One paced back and forth, tutting and rolling his eyes.

The Six spoke up, shaking her head, "I'm not convinced One. How did we get aboard the other ship and how did Baltar disappear?"

The One shook his head in reply, "There is no sign of any alien ship on our sensors. There is no trace of a hyperspace wormhole having closed. There is no radiation signature. HOW could a ship just vanish into thin air?"

The Three spoke, less surely this time, "But we all remember being there. We remember being with Baltar."

The One rolled his eyes, "We remember nothing of the sort. Are we not networked machines? Clearly what has happened is a virus which affected our systems. Six you yourself have tried to 'befriend' Baltar because he alone among humans has intelligence almost equal to one of us. He alone is capable of defending the colony's systems. I suggest that this is Baltar's work. An anti-intrusion defense mechanism in the Colony mainframe picked up your attempts to probe the system and what we all think we heard and saw were the results of our systems (which by the way are derived from colony designs in case you have forgotten) being targeted for destruction by the colony anti-virus system."

The others were slowly nodding, except the Three. The Six had a look of surprise, mixed with resignation and just a touch of dislike. She dropped her head and looked down.

"Three" spoke the One, "I suggest you check yourself in for repair, many of your sisters are also exhibiting strange cyber-neurological symptoms and at least some of them have had to be boxed. Since what you are suggesting verges on heresy, I suggest you rethink your position before we have to take any further actions. That is all."

Without looking at any of them, the One turned his back on them and strode from the room.

CHAPTER 11 – A Day in the Life Continued

ping Incoming signal from sub-sentient Terminal attached to Gauis Baltar.

To: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network Node

From: Terminal 129523 Gaius Baltar attached

Baltar is acting funny. He doesn't know the password even though his biometrics otherwise check out. He also is behaving as if he doesn't know what I am or what I am for. Please provide me with a response since for me this is an out-of-context situation I don't know what to do with.

To: Terminal 129-523-8856-Dancing On Pinheads - Gaius Baltar attached

From: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network

Terminal 129-523-8856, you say Gaius is with you? Can you verify and please elaborate on methodology of verification?

To: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network Node

From: Terminal 129-523-8856-Dancing On Pinheads - Gaius Baltar attached

Affirmative. Gaius Baltar is physically present standing beside me, examining my physical external. I have verified by retinal scan, heat signature, heartbeat signature, electrical skin resistance signature, pheromone signature , gait signature, breathing signature and voice signature. It's Gaius. The only remaining tests not done are DNA analysis and brain scan, which I won't do because it is of course uncouth to do so. Again. This is Gaius but he appears to have lost his memory because he's otherwise normal but doesn't know how to interact with me or indeed even what I am.

To: Terminal 129-523-8856-Dancing On Pinheads - Gaius Baltar attached

From: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network

Thank you. Interesting. Could you please collect a sample of DNA. We don't need a brain scan for now because as you say, that would be a disgusting invasion of sentience.

In Baltar's apartment, Baltar continued to examine the weird looking device on his coffee table that he had found wedged between his mattress and his box spring. It looked somewhat similar to an older model laptop and definitely appeared to be of colonial design from it's aesthetics but he had never seen anything exactly like it and wondered what it could possibly be. It had spoken to him in an unknown language and then in Colonial standard asking for an identification phrase. For a brief instant he had also though he may have seen the briefest glimpse of a laser retinal scanner but there was no way to identify exactly what it was. Perhaps it was a Cylon device?

As Baltar continued to examine the device, a small, microscopically visible nano-structure detached from the surface of the terminal and rearranged into a gossamer form somewhat resembling a microscopic mosquito. It flew towards Baltar, landed on him unnoticeably and injected it's proboscis, gathering both a skin sample and a blood sample. It then detached with its cargo, flew back to the terminal, reconfigured itself into what was essentially a beaker in a tiny bio-chemical lab just constructed milliseconds before on a tiny bubble on the surface of the terminal, invisible to Baltar's eye and unknown to him. In less than a second it had the result of the analysis that it was looking for and transmitted the data back to the waiting ship.

To: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network Node

From: Terminal 129-523-8856-Dancing On Pinheads - Gaius Baltar attached

I can confirm that this DNA sample matches exactly to within acceptable statistical deviation with my records of the several tens of thousands of DNA base pairs corresponding to Gauis Baltar. The mithochondrial DNA also match. As far as I can tell, this is indeed Gaius Baltar. Please provide identification reset instructions.

To: Terminal 129-523-8856-Dancing On Pinheads - Gaius Baltar attached

From: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network

Interesting. Do nothing for now unless Baltar decides to take you out of the building.

To: Dancing On Pinheads Terminal Access Network Node

From: Terminal 129-523-8856-Dancing On Pinheads - Gaius Baltar attached

Acknowledged.

"Heh Baltar" said the disembodied voice of the ship Dancing on Pinheads

Baltar looked up from his currently occupied recreational room which was formed into an exercise facility wherein he was working out on board the vessel Dancing on Pinheads.

"Yes"

"Did you know you have a twin?"

"What?"

CHAPTER 12 A Day in the Life Continued

Nine Months Ago - Spiya-Namark Orbital, Tripatch system, six hundred light years from Idiran sphere of Influence, Milky Way Galaxy

Spiya-Namark orbital was small as Culture Orbitals go. Most modern Orbitals were several million kilometers in circumference, whereas Spiya-Namark was only some eighty thousand. Spiya-Namark was also very ancient. At six plus thousand years old it was one of the oldest surviving orbitals remaining in the Culture. Interestingly, however, though it was one of the first orbitals ever constructed in the Culture, nothing about it was old in terms of functionality. Like some of the most recently built orbitals, it was not statically bound to any particular star system.

The Orbital was capable of interstellar travel and this star system, Tripatch was one of several hundred systems that Spiya-Namark had called home in the last sixty five centuries. Spiya-Namark was nothing like ordinary and was a formidable starship in its own right.

In terms of flight hardware, it had triple redundant ultradrive engines, the same in backup hyperdrive engines and as a last resort, massive plasma ion sublight drives.

Additionally to its flight capability, Spiya-Namark was armed to the teeth with all the standard tried-and-tested military hardware the best Culture Minds could provide. Last but not least though the human and drone population numbered in the region of eighty million citizens, not a single one of them were civilians.

The Tripatch system itself was very unusual for a home system of an orbital, though truth be told this was not Spiya-Namark's home system at all. Usually, an orbital home system was cleared of debris in order to eliminate the risks to the population of any impacts. This star had a full complement of debris which rained down towards the orbital on a regular basis. Additionally, the star itself was unusual. It was part of a binary pair, one half of which was a brown dwarf, just under the size at which nuclear fusion ignited the star, and the other half of the pair, the primary was an unstable Cygnus type red dwarf. Every four and a third standard months, the star would flare and eject a massive pulse of lethal radiation which washed over the entire orbital.

All of this made Spiya-Namark both a very interesting and a very dangerous place to live by Culture standards. Its location in the Galaxy was odd too.

Although Spiya-Namark was relatively close to the Idiran sphere of influence which were now nominal Culture allies, the Idirans knew nothing of its existence. Nor was Spiya-Namark listed in the public directory of orbitals, accessible to all Culture citizens. Indeed, very few Minds knew of its location.

In fact, Spiya-Namark was a classified military base belonging to a secret branch of Special Circumstances.

Like many of the statements made about the Culture for example, "The Culture has no standing Army" this statement was _mostly_ true.

Out of a population of umpteen trillion humans and drones and billions of Minds, less than a tenth of a percent of the population even knew a military existed. Another almost true "common knowledge" statement made about the Culture was that if you were turned down for a career with Special Circumstances you very rarely were reconsidered. If you failed the entrance exam you failed and that was the end of it. Period.

Special Circumstances, however, was a nebulous organization, whose structure and organization was unknown not only to the average Culture citizen, but also within itself. Special Circumstances had many branches. The largest branch of Special Circumstances in terms of population was also its least known branch. Officially called "Administrative Support", this section of Special Circumstances was really the military arm of Special Circumstances.

Therein lay the lie to those who believed there were no second chances to join SC once you were turned down. Although a very tiny percentage of Culture Citizens had what it took to be in effect what was a covert embedded agent, a much larger percentage of the population had the raw material to become a military recruit. It was these that formed the Military arm of the Culture and they lived, breathed and trained on places like Spiya-Namark Orbital. Somewhat cynically, the origin of the phrase, "Don't Fuck with the Culture" came from this nebulous branch of Special Circumstances.

Another day, another military drill.

Deepak Climch looked uneasily at the sky, a deep azure interspersed with whorls of cloud patterns. His sunglasses adjusted within microseconds, to block out most of the harmful glare of the sun, protecting his eyes. Tripatch, this system's primary was at a slight angle to noon but still very high in the sky. Although there had been no flares for six weeks and another wasn't due for a couple of months, he felt like he could see the star flickering, though this was clearly his imagination.

Glancing away from the star, away in the distance, rising majestically up from the horizon in both directions spinward and anti-spinward, could be seen the beautiful blue-white ribbon of the orbital itself. Deepak sighed and continued with the suit check drill.

Though atmosphere was Culture standard, every Administrative Support recruit was required to wear their suit four hours every day. Unlike virtually anywhere else in the Culture, including most of Special Circumstances itself, there were actual rules here on this orbital.

Having to follow rules was grating at first, for every new recruit, but eventually you got used to it. And anyway, though there were rules, they really were voluntary to a certain point. You could either follow the rules and become a trained warrior in the service of the Culture or else you could leave. That rule existed as long as a recruit remained in Administrative Support. One could leave at any point. Few who could tolerate the conditions ever did and every Administrative Support agent was very proud of that fact. Above all, the Culture prized two virtues. First was sentience, which was why the Culture Minds as powerful as they were deigned to take part in a mostly human civilization. Second was choice. No Culture citizen, nor any Culture Mind no matter how powerful would ever coerce another entity to do something it did not want to do unless that entity was directly threatening the death of another unwilling entity and was being unreasonable. Those two tenets formed the core of Culture civilization and applied directly to the Culture's military arm. The Culture needed humans as a military backup but it would not coerce anyone to join this military. As such, all the military personell in Special Circumstances Administrative Support branch were strictly volunteers who had not quite met the requirements for Special Circumstances itself but easily met the requirements for Administrative Support. Many in Administrative Support later came to say they preferred that they had ended up in this branch because it was clearly more exciting and rewarding than being a mere spy even if the regular branches of SC disagreed.

That said, like soldiers from virtually every civilization that had ever existed, soldiers everywhere loved to grumble. Deepak mumbled minor insults as he completed his suit inspection in minute detail and then checked and double checked. Finally he went through the process of putting it on manually piece by piece as if the power had failed. Then and only then would he make contact with the suit's mind.

Deepak had a blinding headache and, his mouth was dry and he had a mild sense of nausea in the pit of his stomach. Additionally his balance was a little off. This would have been unusual for most Culture citizens who were Gen-modded away from human-basic and were easily able to overcome fatigue and many minor, even major diseases due to their enhanced immune systems. In order to uprate their effectiveness, however, all recruits had their glands damped down to human basic in case they were forced to operate in circumstances in which Culture body-types could be detected.

"Fucking neck brace" he swore as his helmet clicked in place and the telltale sign of air pressurization hissed in his ears. He staggered a little and put his hand out against his apartment wall to steady himself.

"Tsk. Tsk. You took your time today Deepak, I'm disappointed." said the suit

"Whatever you bucket of bolts. I'm tired today."

The suit laughed, "You volunteered for this. And you shouldn't get shitfaced with your buddies on a worknight either."

"Yeah. Yeah. So what's the drill today? Another comet impact drill? The last one was a humdinger, though we only lost twenty two million people, virtual."

"No idea."

"Yeah right. You say that every day but every day you know exactly what's going on. So?"

There was a slight pause. Just enough to annoy Deepak ever so slightly. He started to tap his foot.

"Oh well, I suppose I can tell you. There's a ship coming. I think there might be an actual mission, though I don't have details."

"Oorah!"

FIVE MONTHS AGO - Unknown planet Spattered Raindrop Nebula

The Rapid Offensive Unit "Can't we just be friends?" cruised silently towards the night side of the lone planet straight ahead from its recent hiding place in the planet's primary lagrange points. The ship's hull was jet black , perfectly absorbing all radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The only evidence it was there to any unaided observer was an almost indiscernable and brief ripple as the ship passed in front of the sparse star field. The ship emitted no signals of any kind in normal space and all its internal heat waste was radiated out into the grid through an ultrawave antenna.

A few minutes later the ship braked abruptly, decelerating at a pace of hundreds of standard gravities, enough to crush any unprotected human being to a thin smear an atom thick and more than a thousand kilometers wide. It glided quietly through the murky planet's stratosphere and came to a dead stop in the upper troposphere, barely noticing the raging hurricanes all around it.

An eighty strong legion of Administrative Support Special Circumstances Marines waited in the airlock for the green light, in order to drop down silently to the surface of the planet twenty kilometers through the soupy air below to their target; a flattened stocky hyper-concrete structure weighted at an obtuse angle against the immense pressure of the heavy atmosphere.

The green light flickered on.

"Good to go marines, we have a pipe ten by ten of stability, drop zone twenty clicks below. Good luck!"

Eighty marines slid silently into the syrupy air below the ship, their chameleon suits switching on their billions of advanced nano-structure micro-prisms, which gave the effect of perfect camouflage against the squally turbid backdrop of the night sky to their destination below.

The Ship's Mind closed the airlock doors behind them as the last marine dropped into the night and said quietly to an empty ship,

"Oorah!"


	2. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13 - Aboard the Culture Ship GSV Tripping through the Stars - Spattered Raindrop Nebula

Baltar looked quizzically at the empty walls in the featureless bland white room he was currently occupying.

"Please rezz a chair for me. A nice leather sofa-chair, reminiscent of what you might find in a university professor's study, a little worn and well stuffed. I want it to be very comfortable."

A 3D scaled image of five different styles of sofa-chairs appeared hovering in front of him. At either end of the five images in sequence were little arrows. Baltar brushed his index finger along the images, which rippled and changed as he scrolled along the options. He made a face of not-quite-satisfaction but scrolled back to the first five images and selected the second one. A nice burgundy sofa-chair, a little scuffed at the squared off edges, with raised arm rests and shined as if from much use.

The voice of Tripping through the Stars spoke into the empty air,

"Baltar, would you like a real physical chair to be rezzed or else just a tensor-field chair. If the latter, I can do it instantly, if the former it will take about five minutes to print out."

"A tensor field chair will do just fine for now thank you."

The image from the previous slide show suddenly formed what appeared to be a real physical replica of the chair. In reality, however, it was a combination of tensor fields and laser light which appeared to all intents and purposes to be the chair Baltar had selected.

He sat down heavily on the chair and raised his hand to his chin and stroked his goatee gently, head tilted back, forehead crease and with a thoughtful look on his face. He looked upwards into empty white space as he thought.

"What are you thinking about Baltar?", said the disembodied voice of Dancing on Pinheads

"Many things. Who the creators of this civilization could be. Why they are human based, so far away from the Galaxy. Why different types of humans are so spread out all over the galaxy even pre-space-flight. What the tiny transmitters in each of the mitochondrial cells in both the colony humans and the cylons are actually for."

He paused meaningfully and said, "I'm thinking about a lot of things. Let me ask you a couple of questions to get your opinions, if you don't mind that is…"

"OK so here's my first question: as far as you know, have any human civilizations ever sublimed?"

There was a seemingly endless pregnant pause and then a laugh. At that instant Tripping through the Star's avatar rezzed in front of him, a slender woman, naked, tattoed head to foot in shimmering, ever shifting tattoos with dark, dark eyes. Eyes dark as intergalactic space.

She said, "That is a *most* interesting question Baltar. One the Minds would love to know the answer to, but as far as we know, no human civilization in any part of the galaxy we have visited has *ever* sublimed."

The ship's avatar looked directly into Baltar's eyes, "Please tell me, however, how it is that you came to ask that particular question and how it relates to our present situation?"


	3. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14 - Spattered Raindrop Nebula - 18,000 light years from the Milky Way Galaxy, onboard GSV Tripping through the Stars. Actors: Baltar, Tripping, Dancing on pinheads (remote)

Baltar smiled lopsidely and stared with interest at the Ship's avatar, noting the beautiful fractal whorls that expanded and coalesced, little almost lifelike threads spiking out, in a constat shift of color.

He said, "What always interested me was the way human beings are so spread out over the galaxy and that even though not all of them are genetically compatible, you do in fact find silos of genetic compatibility throughout the galaxy."

The avatar was nodding, listening intently as he spoke.

Balatar continued, "What's particularly interesting about that to me is that why among all the species in the galaxy are human beings unique in this way. Not the Idirans, not the Azadians, not the Affront, not the Chelgrians, not the Momomda, not the Morthanveld nor the Oct nor the Nariscene. There's nobody quite like humans. Although not all of them are genetically compatible, they all use the same kind of DNA clustered around a statistical mean. What's even more incredible to me is that some of them clearly evolved on different planets and yet they ARE genetically compatible with other human species even though distantly dispersed throughout the galaxy. It would be easy to say that they have been seeded by someone, since no human species became spaceborne before us in the Culture and we have only been spaceborne for some ten thousand years even though every human species has existed on its home planet for up to two million years in some form or other. The data, however, do not fit a seeding model, so that confuses me."

The ship's avatar smiled knowingly, and said, "That's something we can help you with. According to our models, there are eight different loci all clustered within two hundred parsecs of the outer edge of the galactic habitable zone. As best as our analysis dictates, there were several waves of expansion from these eight different loci and the farther out they go the more genetically drift is apparent, though there is overlap. The pattern is fractal and heavily chaotic and not easily open to analysis. Over time, however, we deduced the existence of the foci. What we were unable to discern, however, is why this might be so."

Baltar pursed his lips in concentration as he added this in, "And yet, the other fascinating thing is that no other space borne species is as old as Humans. All of them reach sentience and are space borne within fifty thousand years. And most of *those* subsequently sublime. But not us."

The voice of Dancing on Pinheads spoke up with perfectly musical pitch and cadence and said, "Yes, because sublimation is boring".

Both ships laughed. Baltar smiled, "But is that really it? Is there something holding us back? Are we more useful as lab experiments somehow?"

He paused meaningfully, "I wonder…."

"It also ties in with the nature of the universe. It's possible that the universe itself is a form of object oriented holographic bubble. In that sense, it's similar to a stage 3 civilization's virtual reality games or even in a very limited sense, our own simulations. Consider that in normal space the speed of light is limited and yet quantum mechanical linkages can transmit information instantly across vast distances. It's almost as if the state machine of the universe is updating its objects in real-time as conditions change in the simulation. I hypothesize that whoever is doing whatever they are doing with the Cylons and the Colonials are in fact sublimed humans who maintain an interest in the mundane and we ourselves are the results of experiments that were left to run after they sublimed. The eight foci were obviously a seeding attempt by them then they sublimed and left us alone."

The ship's avatar watched Baltar intently and signalled him to continue. Dancing on Pinheads said nothing but it was obvious it was listening intently.

Baltar continued, "Which if this is the case, then it would appear that the experiment out in this galactic cloud is still active. But if that's the case, then why? I say this because the mitochondrial transmitters are distinct from anything ever found in any other human. It's like both the Cylons and the human colonials have a very limited remote control built into them, which allows signals to be sent around in kind of a hive-mind-lite."

Dancing with Pinheads spoke up, "You know you could be right. But to what end? We also have come to similar conclusions but we were unable to answer the question of why nor were we able to prove anything for these nine thousand or more years since us Minds were created by those who ultimately formed the Culture. More interesting to us is that even though we individually, speaking of Minds that is, are billions of times more sentient than you humans are, even so, there are a handful of humans who can guess the right answer just by looking at the data even though there is no possible way they can run the analysis that we can. They just *know*. You are one of those Baltar and to us it's incredible and also a part of this enigma. But why?"

Baltar nodded in agreement, "That is indeed the question."


	4. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15 – Surface of unknown planet, Cylon territory, Spattered Raindrop Nebula – 18,000 light years from Milky Way. Actors: Deepak Climch, Suit mind, various other marines.

"Fuck. Fuck it. Fucking shit. Who else is dead?" said Deepak exasperatedly while he stared out into the murky depths of the planet's soupy atmosphere. He swung his fist through it in frustration as if to smite an invisible enemy.

His suit spoke up, "Aziri and Kvaalczyk among others. You want me to read you the entire list of casualties?"

"No fuck it. It's bullshit" he swore with feeling, "Just give me a number and our status. How many are left?"

"We have 29 marines left with a total of 51 dead. All died of the same thing, suit failure."

Deepak shook his head, "What a fucking disaster. How is that even possible?" He sighed and looked at his feet as best he could through the misty goopy air. In his ears he could hear the heavy whining of his suit's air conditioning as it struggled to eject waste heat in this intense, heavy atmosphere. He though he could hear a slight fluctuation in the fan. A surge of adrenalin kicked in and his stomach lurched.

"Shit fucking shit. Okay what happened exactly?"

"The various different organics in the air combined at a particular frequency with the pressure wave moving in front of the marines on their way down. This created a standing wave effect which overloaded the cooling systems of the suits. Additionally the particular characteristics of certain clusters of the organics ate through the faceplates in some cases. This is a nasty, nasty place."

"Well dammit. How come the ship couldn't predict this?"

"There was a very low probability that this could happen. As you know, there is no way to predict with 100% accuracy. As they say, all plans fail in the fog of war."

Deepak laughed sarcastically, looking at the goop circulating around him in strange gloopy slow moving vortexes. "Well, there's nothing can be done now. What do we do about the suit's sentiences?"

"They knew the risks. Anyways, there is only one still active. The rest suffered the same fate as the humans. Possibly it could be backed up onto a flash card. As for the humans, they have been backed up previous to the mission as well you know. The suits failed because they were lower grade technology. As you know when dealing with potential sublimed or other involved in covert ops we cannot give away that we are operating. You know what happened with the Chelgrians. The suit's sentiences also knew what was going on, they couldn't escape by transmission because they are configured to look like nano-material insulation rather than computational substrate. Even level seven tech civilizations would struggle to detect them. And under no circumstances could there be any advanced comms kit like effectors."

He sighed heavily, "Yeah I get it, we have to use fucking level four tech at best, but it's a fucking waste...Kvaalczyk is barely twenty years old actual. He's never been revented not even a single time. Me, I've been through it six times and even though I know there's no real difference between a n exact copy of a person and the person themselves I ask myself often if I'm really me or am I just a copy. I feel like me right, and I understand the principle of equivalence and all, but would the original of me think I was him? I really don't know. Anyways.."

He said feelingly and sighed, " OK so gimme the skinny. What's the next step?"

The suit's voice paused momentarily, "We get the bodies out of the suits and let them degrade. I expect them to be fully degraded in less than a week. They won't be detected as anything strange even if they are found because everyone in this mission has within an acceptable standard deviation of the average colonial body type and as you know everyone is modded back to human basic. If they are found, yes of course the Cylons will think there is something going on with regard to the Colonials, but no way no how will they suspect anything else. The suits themselves will ultimately degrade if left out in these organics. As for the mission itself, though I can see nothing through this crappy atmosphere I have a perfect 3D geospacial model of our surroundings gleaned from the stealth nano-second ultrawave scan the ship did before it dropped us here. We're about 0.8 clicks due west of the artificial Cylon structure of unknown purpose we were dropped here to investigate. All of my sibling suits on your compadres also have a copy of the simulated landscape and should be able to guide all of you even with limited resolution heads up displays. Just start walking and I'll let you know if you're on the right track. The terrain is even so I make it about a twelve minute walk at the slow pace we're projected to move at without overheating the tolerances of the suits. Some of your compadres are pretty close to tolerance limits so I suggest we don't pick up the pace or they could be overloaded."

Deepak shook his head slowly and meaningfully and said into the intercom, "Move out marines, two by four, broad sweep formation."


	5. Chapter 16

Outer Solar System, Unknown Planet, Cylon territory, Spattered Raindrop Nebula – 18,000 light years from Milky Way

The rock had been in orbit of this star system for close to a billion years.  
Once, many tens of millions of years ago it had been much larger.  
On that fateful day, the larger incarnation had collided with another rock  
and split into two major pieces and several hundred smaller pieces.  
The larger piece, let's call it Big Brother, had impacted one of the inner  
planets at a speed of eighty miles per second. The light show had been  
fantastic but more importantly the impact was the death knell for most of the  
photosynthetic species that were just crawling out of the primordial ooze.  
The impact had also had the rather unfortunate side effect of inducing a  
massive volcanic episode which led to an enormous outgassing of carbon dioxide  
and methane, as well as other various greenhouse gases. That particular world  
never again saw the rise of life. At the same time, the smaller piece, let's  
call it little brother had been deflected in it's orbit in the first impact  
off into a long semi elliptical orbit that was almost comet like. It had been  
in this same orbit for many tens of millions of years.

An emergency security transmission arrived in the automated internal mail subsystem  
of Cylon rare earth mining facility in the outer reaches of solar system X-181.  
Model Three and Model One were bored out of their mind supervising the monotonous  
industrial activity of the many mining bots and handful of Cylon centurions.  
They had been in the facility for close to twenty years without much of anything happening.  
Today was different. The alarm Klaxons rang as streams of data started to arrive,  
confirming that there had been a breach in the highly classified medical research facility  
located on a particularly nasty greenhouse planet in the inner system. Both humanoid models  
raised their eyebrows. Model One smiled because today was going to be an interesting day.  
He said, "Colonials?"  
Model 3 said, "It can't be anything else. I'm going to signal the closest base-star for  
help, but meanwhile let's take the Centurions down to the planet for a closer look."  
She typed rapidly on the keyboard, sending an email signal via hyperspace to the nearest  
hyperspace email node corresponding to the basestar N4234. The basestar responded within  
a few seconds with an equivalent of "I'm on my way."  
Shortly thereafter, a mining ship rose from the surface of the mining facility bound for the  
inner system.

The Asteroid called Little brother was not sentient. If it was, however, it may have felt survivor's guilt after  
its "big brother" destroyed all life on the inner planet of this solar system.  
It may have been called poetic justice therefore as Little Brother impacted an incoming  
Dradis Base Star a split second after it transited to real space from hyperspace who was coming  
with the intention of once again destroying life on that planet in the inner system.  
The several thousand cylons had no time to react as the asteroid  
ripped through the basestar with the force of ten thousand nuclear explosions.

The mining ship touched down on the landing pad, not too far from a heavily corroded transport  
vessel. The three looked out into the gloopy darkness and shook her head, "What a disgusting place.  
What fool would come here." The model One said nothing and motioned her to suit up for the hundred yard  
walk to the airlock on the research facility.


	6. Chapter 6

Kvaalchik and Indersajn rounded the corridor. Immediately marching towards them was a crowd of robots and a blonde woman and an older man. To their experienced eyes, the robots looked like they were built from heavy alloy reinforced combat chassis with mounted heavy caliber machine guns. The form and heft clearly suggested military spec robots rather than industrial. From their menacing lines an uncivilized person would have thought "predator". The heads up displays in their suits were more specific: "Cylon Centurion class. Combat model x 18. Unknown human type bipeds. Likely Cylon androids. Suggested course of action: evacuate." Kvaalchik and Indersagn turned tail and ran, sprinting as fast as they could, augmented by the servo-motors in their exoskeletons just as the Cylon Centurion laser scoped optical units locked on. The deep thumping of heavy caliber machine guns sounded and a bullet ripped into Kvaalchik's spleen, rupturing it. He grimaced in pain and piss involuntarily ran down his leg. His suit sealed the tear behind him and pumped him full of natural endorphins but his lower brain still registed that something was deeply, horribly wrong. He staggered forward, carried in great part by the screaming servo-motors. At the same instant Indersagn lobbed a shrapnel tipped incendiary behind him, losing a few precious milliseconds to escape. Multiple 50 cal heavy rounds ripped into him from behind, tearing into his legs and torso and twisting him sharply at an unnatural angle. He grunted and fell awkwardly, smelling the sulphur laced stench of mid-industrial gun smoke. A bullet slammed into his skull from behind, shattering it. In his last lucid moment before he careened forward into the floor he thought "Fuck. I'm dead." An explosion rocked the corridor as the shrapnel grenade went off. Kvaalchik was, however already round the corridor and received none of the blast. The first several cylons and Indersajn had no such luck. Indersajn was shredded along with his suit and another grenade went off in sympathy. The two skinjobs at the back were ejected backwards by the blast but received limited damage. Not so the hapless centurions at the front. Fragments of twisted light composite alloy were ripped from the combat chassis by the blast and were scattered over the corridor. The remaining centurions at the back started removing the debris in order to get to their prey.

Deepak observed the foul creature floating in the tank. It turned his stomach looking at it. Likewise the specimen tank with what appeared to be living human fetuses which had clearly been experimented on. All manner of wires and equipment looked to be attached to the fetuses in a haphazard twisted unnatural mess. The room was clearly a laboratory where all manner of horrible experiments were conducted. Deepak looked more closely at the tank. The creature in it looked vaguely human. It was disgusting. Somewhere between the color of cigarette ash and a ghoulish bone pallor it languished in a horrible broth of shit, puke and other unknown bits of biological excreta. It too, like the unfortunate fetuses was connected up to unknown machinery. Deepak said, "I think I'm going to waste it." His suit replied, "Shouldn't you let it live? It's probably sentient and you shouldn't thoughtlessly take its life." Deepak shook his head, "Do you think it chose this? No, it's exactly like those babies. I'm going to put it out of its misery." With that Deepak took out his .45 and shot it twice in the face at point blank. The creature opened its eyes and looked right at him but they were dead eyes or the eyes of a person who was brain dead but on life support. Or perhaps the eyes of a concentration camp inmate. Deepak felt a wave of repulsion. He shot it again. The creature sighed, then slid into the foul liquid and burbled a little then went still. He walked round the room and started knocking over the tanks with the distorted fetuses in them.


	7. Chapter 7

Indersajn's green line flickered briefly and then flipped red.

According to his tactical combat overview heads up display, that left

only two teams with any green lights. His and Kvaalchik's, which was

flickering. All other teams were red and silent across the board.

Kvaalchik ran and ran, looking frantically for a place to hide. There was nowhere to be had.

At the end of the long dark industrial corridor he passed into a cavernous room with some

plexiglass lined bays which looked like medical labs. They were filled with all sorts of disgusting

looking biological experiments. In the middle was a large tank about four foot high, in which

was a distorted looking creature, somewhat reminiscent of a young woman with twisted features

and an awful pallor, somewhere between puss and cooked bone. Half of her distorted face was

missing, the other half some kind of jumbled tangle of wires directly joined to her head and surrounded

by an angry looking reddish inflamed mess. The creature was burbling to itself, semi-submerged.

The place smelled like a combination of over-ripe farts and industrial cleaning solvent with a slight

tang of baby shit. There was nowhere else to hide. Kvaalchik hunkered down behind the tank,

sitting down heavily, panting to catch his breath. He waited and waited, hoping against all hope that

they would pass him by. No such luck. A huge centurion staggered round the corner momentarily and

swiveled it's insect like head and single beady eye on him. Its gun motors on it's 50 cal machine guns

built into it's wrists powered up. Kvaalchik reacted and stood up and opened fire, the speed of his reaction time massively augmented by his suit. His weapon spat small caliber grenades and 200 round per minute projectiles. The hapless centurion was instantly cut in half at the waist in a blinding explosion and cloud of acrid gun smoke. The light on it's faceplate went dark and it seemed to say "whut?" Kvaalchik smiled grimly. Then what remained of the centurion fell awkwardly in two directions - the legs and a scattering of wrecked sub components, springs, cables and motors in one direction and the massive sub-chasis with the head, ribcase, arms and severed spine on top of Kvaalchik. Kvaalchik's smile was wiped off his face as he was crushed backwards against the tank by the enormous weight of the centurion's carcass. The suit barely saved him from being crushed and by a huge stroke of luck he managed to avoid being pierced through the ribs by the sharp end of the wrecked spine which instead punctured straight through the swollen distended

belly of the creature in the tank. The creature squealed and burbled some indecipherable sibilent sounds and simultaneously shit itself and vomited. A small stream of diarrea floated into a rivulet of blobs through the soupy goop and mixed with little crusted bits of vomit and what appeared to be semi coagulated semi jellied blood. It's eyes briefly blinked and it burbled some more and then went quiet. Kvaalchick strained to hold the weight of the centurion from forcing him into the liquid but was firmly stuck. His suit batteries appeared also to be severely depleted. Unless he got this thing off he was going to drown in this crap.

As Deepak knocked over the last tank, he heard machine gun fire and explosions in the next room of the lab. He looked round the corner and took several 50 cal rounds to his chest. He was jolted backwards by the force of the rounds and tried to return fire but his weapon was shot from his arm along with his right hand. He winced at the shock of the pain and instantly glanded "diffuse" and felt the pain dwindle to a far off state. He observed the stump of his hand in a calm, objective manner, noting the assymetry of the ripped tendons and smashed bone. He sat impassive as two more massively squat centurions entered the lab, flanked by a young blonde woman. She cocked her head oddly as she looked at him. Deepak ejected the faceplate of his suit so he could breath better. He gasped. The place stank of piss and other foul aromas. He asked him something in a guttural tongue with both an inquistive tone and also with an icy tone of command. Deepak only smiled.

Deepak laughed when he saw the skinjob. Tall, skinny with a pointy head

like most of these colonial type humans. A bit wierd looking but definitely

kind of hot. She looked askance at him and barked something at him in her

guttural tongue. For all the world she looked like an imperial princess surrounded

by giant knights in armor. For all they were artificial life trying to be different

from the human system they despised, they still managed to ape feudalism perfectly.

The skinjob didn't get the irony though and just glared at him. The huge but squat

shiny metallic centurions, like evil robotic panthers waiting to strike, opened fire.

Deepak shuddered with the impacts but the suit held firm, the multi-nano-composite

layered armor protecting him from most of the damage.

Kvaalchik heard heavy machine gun fire from very close. He wondered who else was still alive and shouted "help me!"

No help came. His suit appeared to be offline except for basic servo-assist. He grunted and strained, struggling desperately to exert enough force to tip the hulk off of him. It was no use.

The suit servomotors screamed high pitched electronic agonies as they strained with the

effort of holding 1800 lbs of damaged hyper strong alloyed combat chassis

from forcing his head into the bath of fetid, reeking foulness that was

the organic soup in which was suspended the dead hybrid with it's face

half blown away. The battery remaining hud blinked red on and off, counting down the

seconds he had to live. Eventually they failed and though he strained with all his

force it was like being pushed by an elephant. He went under. He could feel

the little asymmetric bits of crap bounce off his face in the foul, viscous goop.

He struggled to hold his breath but finally, lungs bursting he had to breath.

He sucked in the foul stuff and immediately retched, gagged and started to cough.

His eyes opened and stung horribly, making him cough even worse, inhaling even more of the putrid stuff.

His body spasmed with the agony of it when, lungs on the point of collapse, his vision went mercifully black.

A half croaking half burbling sound came from his now goop filled throat, the last of his breath leaving him in a stream of soupy bubbles, he spasmed momentarily and was gone.

On Deepak's HUD the second but last light flickered faintly green and then went red.

The skinjob was ranting now but Deepak ignored it. He said, "Suit, are you still there? I'm fading I think. "

"Yes, I'm still here but my batteries are nearly depleted" the suit answered

"What a fncking joke this level 4 technology is.", Deepak said, breathing laborously. "Do you have anything hidden up your sleeve that you kept for circumstances such as this?" Deepak managed a snicker in spite of himself.

"Yes. I have a micro-nuke just for eventualities."

Deepak laughed some more and coughed. He tasted blood and spat it out on the floor. Crimson red arterial blood. He didn't have much longer. "What yield?"

"Scalable from 1 kiloton to 500 kilotons."

"Nice. Let's go with 500. I want to go out with a boom."

The skinjob came up to him and ranted right in his face. Deepak blew her a kiss. She slapped him, hard, in the face.

Deepak said "do it."

The facility bloomed in the high ultraviolet as the blast instantly vaporized everything and sent a 100 thousand pound per square inch shockwave rushing out of the holes where the doors were. Sonic booms were briefly heard up to 100 miles away. Or would have been if there had been anyone to hear it alive on the planet. The heat and radiation fused and chemically reacted several thousand tons of the volatile soupy organics in the atmosphere into biological pre-cursors which might in an eventuality have helped life along. Had there been different circumstances.

But it was not to be. Six hours later the shattered remnants of little brother impacted the base with the force of ten thousand suns, completely obliterating it. Once again the un-named planet had no traces whatsoever of life.

Suddenly, in an unmeasurable micro blink of the eye, all Culture Ships that were within the boundaries of the spattered raindrop nebula were outside. Simultaneously, as far as all their advanced instrumentation could tell, there was a shimmering, glowing barrier emiting bright yellow light with 100% efficiency at 5893 angstrom, the spectral color of sodium. At least one of the displaced Ships thought that was interesting and potentially worth simulating to see if there was a possible answer for that. What all of the ships thought was interesting was that in spite of the barrier appearing to be a simple yellow light, it was in fact, inpenetrable to their instruments. Before they had a chance to assemble a conversation to discuss this recent data they all simultaneously heard a voice coming through ultraspace on a similar band to the Dra'azon.

"WE ARE NOT THE DRA'AZON"

"YOU CAN NO LONGER ENTER THE EXPERIMENTAL ZONE."

"WE WOULD EXPLAIN THE DATA AND THE RESULTS BUT YOUR UNSUBLIMED MINDS ARE TOO PUNY TO COMPREHEND THE DIMENSIONALITY."

"GOODBYE. DO NOT COME BACK HERE."


End file.
